Sam Raimi has admitted he “messed up plenty” his 2007 film ‘Spider-Man 3’, the final film in his Tobey Maguire-starring superhero trilogy.
He had previously blamed Sony for the disappointing film, widely panned upon release for filling the story with too many villains and plot threads, and Maguire’s swaggering turn as the Venom-possessed version of Spider-Man, but he recently told the Nerdist’s podcast he “didn’t believe in all the characters” on the third instalment.
“It’s just a movie that didn’t work very well. I tried to make it work,” he said, “but I didn’t really believe in all the characters, so that couldn’t be hidden from people who loved Spider-Man. If the director doesn’t love something, it’s wrong of them to make it when so many other people love it. Each and every one of those Spider-Man movies were pretty damn challenging,” he continued. “I messed up plenty with the third Spider-Man, so people hated me for years – they still hate me for it.”
He said there had been too much focus on bettering the performance of the previous two Spidey films, going on to say: “I think raising the stakes after ‘Spider-Man 2’ was the thinking going into it, and I think that’s what doomed us. I should’ve just stuck with the characters and the relationships and progressed them to the next step and not tried to top the bar. I think that was my mistake.”
After ‘Spider-Man 3’, which still took almost $900 million despite the negative reaction, Sony decided to end Raimi’s tenure at the helm of the films and reboot with Andrew Garfield in the title role and ‘500 Days Of Summer’ director Marc Webb in charge. The second film in that new franchise, ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ received similarly negative reviews and disappointing box office results last year, sparking rumours the studio are considering changing director and lead actor for a second time before continuing with any further Spider-Man films.